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The College Football Czar: Week 7 Week six in review: Another strange week has resulted in the first four coaching casualties of the season. The first of these was Maryland’s Randy Edsall, whose imminent dismissal had already been known, although the College Football Czar admits to being surprised that he’s the first coach from a recent Big Ten expansion team to get the boot. He must have beaten out Rutgers’ Kyle Flood by at least a few weeks. In four-plus seasons with the Terrapins, Edsall was 22-33, after going 74-70 in 12 years at Uconn. The Terps’ interim coach is...

South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier told his players and coaches Monday night that he is retiring immediately, sources told ESPN.com.

The College Football Czar: Week 6 Week five in review: The lesson through the first five weeks of the season is that, apparently, nobody is really very good. Four of the Top Ten teams lost last Saturday, while numbers one and two, Ohio State and Michigan State, looked terrible in clinging to victories against conference foes they’d normally be expected to steamroll. Even as parity dominates, there are 20 undefeated teams at this point in the season, partly because most teams had scheduled at least one phony game against a lower-division opponent, and one deliberately uncompetitive game against a small-conference...

The College Football Czar: Week 5 Week four in review: The College Football Czar had another bad week, although the week the replay officials had around the country was far worse. A completely unjustifiable reversal on a fumble call to decide the Thursday night Memphis-Cincinnati game set the tone for a long Saturday of blown calls on replay. The Czar accepts the fact that instant replay reviews are here to stay, but he’ll thank announcers to stop justifying the practice with the asinine assertion that “the important thing is to get the call right in the end.” Those teams that...

The College Football Czar: Week 4 Week three in review: It was a dismal week for the College Football Czar, but he’s not the only one. Top-ranked Ohio State barely eked out a victory over Northern Illinois, while both Alabama and Southern Cal D-sintegrated before our eyes. It was a Saturday filled with seesaw battles decided by razor-thin margins, several of which turned against the Czar at the last moment. For the week, he was 9-11, causing his overall record to plummet to 39-21, for a .650 winning percentage. All the on-air personalities at the Seamy Underbelly of Networks have...

The College Football Czar: Week 3 Week two in review: You knew that when the AP put ten SEC teams in the Top 25, it was setting the league up for a fall. Three of those teams (Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi State) have fallen out of this week’s rankings, and Auburn has plummeted to #18 after barely surviving a challenge from Division I-AA Jacksonville State. The Czar, for one, did not think that highly of MSU before the season, nor during their opener against Southern Miss, but now thinks they’re actually more worthy of a ranking after a competitive loss...

Mason Darrow was in a slump. The freshman offensive lineman for the Princeton Tigers had made it into a couple of games in the 2013 season, but his practices one defining week in early November were a mess. He was slow making calls and his feet were stuck in the mud. His racing mind was getting in the way of his performance with internal questions he was increasingly tired of answering. Walking to the sideline after a particularly poor play, Darrow's head hung low. The strong breeze of autumn brought a chill, the sun setting behind the rainbow of oak...

The College Football Czar: Week 2 Week one in review: There were so few games of consequence during the opening week that Saturday’s highlight was when a Bowling Green defensive lineman attempted the worst fake injury in recorded history. DT Mike Minns lost a shoe between plays in a goal line series against Tennessee, and for some reason expected the officials to stop the game until he could put it back on. They didn’t, so he did what must have appeared to be the only sensible thing to do. Waving his shoe over his head, he pleaded for a stoppage,...

The College Football Czar: Week 1 If you're reading the College Football Czar’s week one picks, that must mean that yet another long summer of terrible TV is about to come to a merciful end. So – if you’ve found yourself holding up a pencil in front of the television and yelling “not so fast” at the morning weatherman... If you’ve been bringing home bags of tiny rubber pellets, in order to give your living room carpet a more footbally feel... If you’ve let yourself be henpecked into renting Jerry Maguire, just because it’s sort of, more-or-less tangentially related to...

1 Ohio State (62) 14-1 1598 — 2 TCU (1) 12-1 1487 — 3 Alabama (1) 12-2 1452 — 4 Baylor 11-2 1365 — 5 Oregon 13-2 1260 — 6 Michigan State 11-2 1230 — 7 Auburn 8-5 1103 — 8 Florida State 13-1 1057 — 9 Georgia 10-3 1026 — 10 USC 9-4 1014 — 11 Notre Dame 8-5 883 — 12 Clemson 10-3 838 — 13 LSU 8-5 727 — 14 UCLA 10-3 697 — 15 Ole Miss 9-4 668 — 16 Arizona State 10-3 577 — 17 Georgia Tech 11-3 573 — 18 Wisconsin 11-3 470 —...

The College Football Czar 2015 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2015 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains the Czar's rankings for all 128 teams in Division I-A football, as well as conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you...

Before new Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh has put his first points on the scoreboard in The Big House, the school has self-reported four minor NCAA violations in football that have occurred under Harbaugh's watch. The violations are classified as Secondary/Level III. Violations of that nature typically result in no punitive action by the NCAA and are handled through education of the coaching staff through the school's compliance department. According to mlive.com, two of the violations directly involved the former San Francisco 49ers head coach. In one violation, Harbaugh donated an autographed team helmet and a jersey to an auction...

The NCAA received another serious blow to its credibility today. In court documents filed Thursday in the Paterno lawsuit, Oregon State President and then-NCAA Executive Committee Chairman Ed Ray admitted to not actually reading the Freeh Report — the entire basis for the NCAA sanctions — prior to sanctioning Penn State in 2012. In his testimony in the Paterno Family’s ongoing case, Ray said he was unaware that he needed to prep for anything related to the Freeh Report before the organization’s executive board met to discuss possible sanctions on the University. Instead, Ray spent time in Hawaii where he...

Miami clobbered Virginia Tech 30-6 in Blacksburg Thursday night. That drops the Hokies to 3-4 vs. FBS teams on the season. Ohio State’s two-touchdown loss at home to them looks worse with each passing week. Tech’s continued slide could be devastating to the Buckeyes’ chances of reaching the playoff, despite their dominance of late. Here is a reasonable scenario if Ohio State wins out. Florida State wins out to get to 13-0 and is a lock for the playoff. Alabama wins out and wins the SEC claiming a second place. That leaves two places for a one-loss Ohio State (B1G...

The Ducks and Buckeyes will meet for the trophy in Arlington, Texas.On Monday, Jan. 12 at 8:30 p.m. ET, the No. 2 Oregon Ducks and No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes will be in Cowboys Stadium to play in the first-ever College Football Playoff final. The Ducks clinched their spot by embarrassing defending champion Florida State in the Rose Bowl, 59-20, while OSU upset No. 1 Alabama, 42-35, in New Orleans. This will be Oregon's second appearance in an officially ordained national championship game. The Ducks' first came in the 2010 season's BCS Championship, when they lost, 22-19, to Cam Newton's...

Tampa, Fla. — Barry Alvarez, Wisconsin's full-time athletic director and two-time interim head coach, passed the baton to new head coach Paul Chryst in style Thursday. UW entered the 2015 Outback Bowl a 61/2-point underdog against Southeastern Conference power Auburn. Yet the Badgers erased the memories of an ugly 59-point loss in the Big Ten title game thanks to another remarkable performance from Melvin Gordon, a tying field goal in the final minute of regulation and the winner in overtime by freshman kicker Rafael Gaglianone, and finally a huge defensive stand.

Open bowl thread Late second quarter, refs wave off a BYU defensive pass interference after claim ball was tipped. (Instant replay -- no tip at line...only tip by BYU interception player...result? Free ref-provided td for BYU) Otherwise...hi-scoring first half. BYU...first 1 1/2 quarters...an unsportmanslike conduct penalty...an unnecessary roughness penalty...a facemask penalty...A real testimony, I would say. Commentators mentioned penalties been an issue for BYU during season.

There will be 39 college football bowl games played this season. Three of those, the Citrus, Sun and Las Vegas will be shown on ABC or CBS, i.e. "broadcast" TV. The remaining games will be carried ONLY by the various ESPN channels.

The College Football Czar: 2014-15 Bowl Game Picks Week fifteen in review: As critical as the College Football Czar is of the whole concept of the CFP Committee, he is pleased that it has succeeded in selecting the correct four teams, an obnoxious publicity campaign by #5 Baylor notwithstanding. Anybody who argues that any team other than Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State deserves a shot at the national title is merely agitating on behalf of playoff expansion for its own sake. Fourth-rated Ohio State certainly has its flaws, but the Buckeyes are one among the tiny minority of...

Hold on…do you mean you can't succeed at the quarterback position in the NFL by just upchucking lobs into the middle of the field like you're at the county fair trying to throw rings around milk bottles? Are you telling me that what you could do at Texas A&M, you can't do in the pros? That everyone is faster than you? More athletic? You mean if you don't study hard all the time in a league with so many intelligent men who bust their ass in the classroom, you might fail?